Strike It Rich Online

This type of TV was acceptable in the early days of TV. The show was popular as a sign of HOPE for people who needed help. It wasn't sleaze and unfit for family viewing. So, someone's big need was a new washer or money for a dentist. It can't be compared for "shock Jerry TV". Come on now. The show was on the air for about 13 years. That says something for it. The "Heart Line" was the highlight of the show as it meant help was on the way. My husband took pride in his work on "Strike It Rich", just as he did on many other shows he announced. Your comments and comparisons are disgusting. I just wonder what show you were watching. Roberta Paul

"Strike It Rich" was well known in Gasport, NY, (pop. 600) where I grew up. Warren Hull was born in the house I grew up in. In 1954, 'Radio-TV Mirror', a fanzine, sponsored "Warren Hull Day" in Gasport. Warren came back to visit, & they had a parade for him. They took a picture of our house & put a sign in the yard "Warren Hull's birthplace". My folks were apparently not fans of "Strike It Rich" & took the sign down & put it in the cellar. Years later I found it, and a copy of the magazine, and that's how I found out about all this...

Not to take sides of whether or not Strike It Rich was in the same category as Jerry Springer, the show originated on radio in 1947. If the contestant was not able to answer any of the questions designed to get him the prize money, phone calls to the heartline were accepted where listeners donated money so that no contestant walked away without a prize. The program came under fire in 1954 from the New York Welfare Department which was being flooded by out-of-towners who had come to crash the show. The group charged that the "heartline" aspect made the show a charity raising funds without a license. The producer changed the format and the show continued. This information came from John Dunning's Encyclopedia of Radio. Warren Hull became identified with the show as its longtime emcee. Interesting to note that while the IMDb notes that he was married several times, it makes no mention of Roberta Paul who wrote in to complain that her husband had been unjustly criticized for his participation on the show.

Strike It Rich was regular TV fare in our home when I was a kid. My mom was often glued to the TV set. It didn't hold much appeal to me, but - in all fairness - I think the comparison to Jerry Springer is rather far fetched. A half a century of cultural change makes any kind of comparison difficult, to say the least. It's rather amusing to think of Hull milking the pity quotient of those pathetic guests and their stories, while just a dozen years earlier he had starred in serials as The Green Hornet and Mandrake the Magician. In fact, I believe he played the Spider as well. With all those super powers floating around, why didn't he just remedy those guests' problems rather than wait for the Heartline to ring?

This has to be one of the, if not the, most exploitive shows in the history of television. Smarmy "host" Warren Hull would bring on stage an assortment of poor souls, mostly women, who would relate their hard-luck stories, such as a sick or injured husband who's lost his job and they're about to be put out on the street, or they have a small child with a terminal disease and no money to pay hospital bills, or stories equally as sad. While these women are crying, wailing and relating their tales of woe, Hull--always with a smile pasted on his face--would turn up the pathos meter by constantly driving home what desperate straits they were in, which would upset them even more and make them cry even harder. Then he would look directly into the camera and implore someone "out there in televisionland" to take pity on this poor wretch and send her a new refrigerator, or a washing machine, or cash (which almost never happened), or whatever it was that was needed. Soon after his impassioned "plea," a local merchant would conveniently call and donate the required merchandise, which would lead into a spot extolling the virtues of the donor (while also giving the name and address of the store--in effect, giving the company a free commercial). The show was universally reviled by critics, but it always had good ratings, so people were obviously watching it. It had such a terrible reputation, though, that even the TV series "The Honeymooners" made fun of it--in one episode sewer worker Ed Norton described a co-worker who was so mean and heartless that "he watched 'Strike It Rich' for fun!" Even modern-day trashfests like "The Jerry Springer Show" or "The Maury Povich Show" seem positively saintly compared to this atrocity. It was one of those shows that actually made you squirm in embarrassment as you watched it. It was eventually taken off the air, and that bizarre genre was thankfully put to rest. Unfortunately, they didn't put a stake through its heart, as the emergence of the Springer and Povich shows prove. No matter how scuzzy and sleazy those two are, though, they still have a long way to plummet before they hit the depths of "Strike It Rich"--a small consolation, but a consolation nevertheless.

Exploitive? Yes. Entertaining? Obviously. It should be given sainthood compared to Springer-Povich crap that people watch today. Its lengthy run shows that people enjoyed it and, even though the number of people it helped was minute, at least it did those few some good. A natural comparison is "Queen For A Day" with Jack Bailey and his mustache.

Anyway, Warren Hull holds a special place in my heart. In the mid-1940s I was in the Army, with the Signal Corps, and at night with the Armed Forces Radio Service, stationed in Nome, Alaska, and the only USO entertainers that ever came up were part of a show emceed by Hull. We were, obviously, too far and too few. There were only about a dozen in our unit and, in those days, there was a very small air force base nearby.

I don't remember much about the show except for the young lady that came with him. Vanessa Brown began her showbiz career as one of the Quiz Kids, later becoming an ingenue with a host of cutie-pie roles in light movies.

I remember that she, Hull, and the others took time to spend time with us.

We felt we struck it rich and, by the way, in those days gold miners were still trying to do that.